Eastern Cape’s poorest schools finally get full funding

Underfunded schools in the Eastern Cape have received welcome relief after the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) in Makhanda secured full funding for them from the province’s education department.

The schools, which together provide basic education to more than 1.5-million pupils, require the money to buy textbooks and stationery and pay for maintenance and utilities.

Funding for pupils is gazetted annually by basic education minister Angie Motshekga. The province’s poorest schools were informed initially they would receive R607.90 per pupil, well below the R1,602 national norm.

Cecile van Schalkwyk, a lawyer at the LRC, said the framing of funding norms enabled provincial education departments to deviate from the target set by Motshekga, “creating an unequal and discriminatory funding model where some provinces fund below the target amount”.

However, after almost a year of pressure from the LRC, the provincial department announced in a presentation last Friday that the schools will receive the full allocation in the new financial year which started this month, amounting to R2.5bn.

The department announced at a presentation last Friday that non-fee-paying schools — so-called quintile 1-3 schools — will receive R1,602 per pupil, while 51,150 and 72,321 pupils attending quintile 4 and 5 schools in the province each qualify for R803 and R278 funding, respectively.

Schools were advised that from April 2020 they would receive only 78% of their “paper budgets” due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“More bad news followed as schools’ budgets were cut further during the 2021/22 and 2022/23 financial years and when schools received their paper budgets in November 2022 for the 2023/24 financial year it again showed a decrease from previous years,” van Schalkwyk said.

“Since 2020, schools in the province have been struggling to survive the budget cuts and the prospect of another budget reduction for 2023/24 placed them under enormous financial pressure,: she added.

Van Schalkwyk said the LRC has been in talks with the department  since May last year.

“Repeated correspondence to the department went unanswered and when the 2023/24 paper budgets were released in November 2022, the LRC indicated it would pursue legal action” as the cuts violated pupils’ rights to education, human dignity and equality, and was not in their best interest.

Van Schalkwyk said the revised budget was announced during a principals’ meeting attended by education MEC Fundile Gade in Gqeberha on April 3.

“This decision has now been confirmed during a presentation on April 21 by the department when it was announced that an additional R872.5m had been made available to fund at the national norms and standards target for 2023/24.”

Van Schalkwyk said Boniwe Tyota, the chairperson of the school governing body of Tantyi Primary School in Makhanda, had told her the revised budget means their school will receive about R174,000 more this financial year than the original budget.

“The school has been relying on parents to buy toilet paper and copying paper for the pupils. About 80% of parents whose children attend the Tantyi Primary School are unemployed, and the additional burden of supporting the school has affected families’ ability to care for their children,” Van Schalkwyk said.

When the school heard its budget would be cut again this year, it asked parents for support by buying cleaning products to clean the toilets and classrooms.

“The revised paper budget will mean the school will again be able to cover the cost of these expenses and ensure the health and safety of the pupils. It will also alleviate the pressure on parents,” Van Schalkwyk said.

The chairperson of the governing body of Ntsika Secondary School in Makhanda, Xolisile Tyotha, said the revised budget meant the school would receive about R1.3-million, more than double the original amount.

“While none of the schools represented by the LRC have received their revised budgets to date, we will monitor the process and hold the department to its undertaking to issue the budgets,” Van Schalkwyk said.

“The Eastern Cape has seen three years of below-target funding ... we see the decision by the department to reissue the paper budgets as an enormous victory for our clients and, in particular, for all pupils in the Eastern Cape.”

Eastern Cape education spokesperson Mali Mtima hadn’t responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

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